THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


THE  ROMANES  LECTURE 
1910 

BIOLOGICAL  ANALOGIES 
IN  HISTORY 


BY 

THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 


DELIVERED 

BEFORE  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 
JUNE  7TH,    19 10 


OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

AMERICAN  BRANCH 

35  WEST  32D  STREET,  NEW  YORK 

LONDON  :    HENRY  FROWDE 
I9IO 


Copyright,  1 9 10,  by 

Oxford  University  Press 

American  Branch 


IRomanee  Xecture 


BIOLOGICAL  ANALOGIES 
IN  HISTORY 

An  American  who,  in  response  to  such  an  invitation  as 
I  have  received,  speaks  in  this  university  of  ancient  re- 
nown, cannot  but  feel  with  pecuHar  vividness  the  interest 
and  charm  of  his  surroundings,  fraught  as  they  are  with 
a  thousand  associations.  Your  great  universities,  and  all 
the  memories  that  make  them  great,  are  living  realities  in 
the  minds  of  scores  of  thousands  of  men  who  have  never 
seen  them  and  who  dwell  across  the  seas  in  other 
lands.  Moreover,  these  associations  are  no  stronger  in 
the  men  of  English  stock  than  in  those  who  are  not.  My 
people  have  been  for  eight  generations  in  America;  but 
in  one  thing  I  am  like  the  Americans  of  to-morrow, 
rather  than  like  many  of  the  Americans  of  to-day ;  for  I 
have  in  my  veins  the  blood  of  men  who  came  from  many 
different  European  races.  The  ethnic  make-up  of  our 
people  is  slowly  changing  so  that  constantly  the  race  tends 
to  become  more  and  more  akin  to  that  of  those  Americans 
who  like  myself  are  of  the  old  stock  but  not  mainly  of 
English  stock.  Yet  I  think  that,  as  time  goes  by,  mutual 
respect,  understanding,  and  sympathy  among  the  English- 
speaking  peoples  grow  greater  and  not  less.  Any  of  my 
ancestors,  Holland  or  Huguenot,  Scotchman  or  Irishman, 
who  had  come  to  Oxford  in  'the  spacious  days  of  great 
Elizabeth,'  would  have  felt  far  more  alien  than  I,  their 
descendant,  now  feel.    Common  heirship  in  the  things  of 


4  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

the  spirit  makes  a  closer  bond  than  common  heirship  in 
the  things  of  the  body. 

More  than  ever  before  in  the  world's  history  we  of 
to-day  seek  to  penetrate  the  causes  of  the  mysteries 
that  surround  not  only  mankind  but  all  life,  both  in  the 
present  and  the  past.  We  search,  we  peer,  we  see 
things  dimly;  here  and  there  we  get  a  ray  of  clear 
vision,  as  we  look  before  and  after.  We  study  the 
tremendous  procession  of  the  ages,  from  the  immemo- 
rial past  when  in  'cramp  elf  and  saurian  forms'  the 
creative  forces  'swathed  their  too-much  power,'  down 
to  the  yesterday,  a  few  score  thousand  years  distant 
only,  when  the  history  of  man  became  the  overwhelming 
fact  in  the  history  of  life  on  this  planet;  and  studying, 
we  see  strange  analogies  in  the  phenomena  of  life  and 
death,  of  birth,  growth,  and  change,  between  those 
physical  groups  of  animal  life  which  we  designate  as 
species,  forms,  races,  and  the  highly  complex  and  com- 
posite entities  which  rise  before  our  minds  when  we 
speak  of  nations  and  civilizations. 

It  is  this  study  which  has  given  science  its  present- 
day  prominence.  In  the  world  of  intellect,  doubtless, 
the  most  marked  features  in  the  history  of  the  past  cen- 
tury have  been  the  extraordinary  advances  in  scientific 
knowledge  and  investigation,  and  in  the  position  held 
by  the  men  of  science  with  reference  to  those  engaged 
in  other  pursuits.  I  am  not  now  speaking  of  applied 
science;  of  the  science,  for  instance,  which,  having  revo- 
lutionized transportation  on  the  earth  and  the  water, 
is  now  on  the  brink  of  carrying  it  into  the  air;  of  the 
science  that  finds  its  expression  in  such  extraordinary 
achievements  as  the  telephone  and  the  telegraph;  of 
the  sciences  which  have  so  accelerated  the  velocity  of 
movement  in  social  and  industrial  conditions — for  the 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  5 

changes  in  the  mechanical  appliances  of  ordinary  life 
during  the  last  three  generations  have  been  greater 
than  in  all  the  preceding  generations  since  history 
dawned.  I  speak  of  the  science  which  has  no  more 
direct  bearing  upon  the  affairs  of  our  everyday  life  than 
literature  or  music,  painting  or  sculpture,  poetry  or 
history.  A  hundred  years  ago  the  ordinary  man  of 
cultivation  had  to  know  something  of  these  last  subjects ; 
but  the  probabilities  were  rather  against  his  having  any 
but  the  most  superficial  scientific  knowledge.  At  present 
all  this  has  changed,  thanks  to  the  interest  taken  in  sci- 
entific discoveries,  the  large  circulation  of  scientific  books, 
and  the  rapidity  with  which  ideas  originating  among 
students  of  the  most  advanced  and  abstruse  sciences  be- 
come, at  least  partially,  domiciled  in  the  popular  mind. 

Another  feature  of  the  change,  of  the  growth  in  the 
position  of  science  in  the  eyes  of  every  one,  and  of 
the  greatly  increased  respect  naturally  resulting  for  scien- 
tific methods,  has  been  a  certain  tendency  for  scientific 
students  to  encroach  on  other  fields.  This  is  particu- 
larly true  of  the  field  of  historical  study.  Not  only  have 
scientific  men  insisted  upon  the  necessity  of  consider- 
ing the  history  of  man,  especially  in  its  early  stages,  in 
connexion  with  what  biology  shows  to  be  the  history 
of  life,  but  furthermore  there  has  arisen  a  demand  that 
history  shall  itself  be  treated  as  a  science.  Both 
positions  are  in  their  essence  right;  but  as  regards 
each  position  the  more  arrogant  among  the  invaders  of 
the  new  realm  of  knowledge  take  an  attitude  to  which 
it  is  not  necessary  to  assent.  As  regards  the  latter  of 
the  two  positions,  that  which  would  treat  history  hence- 
forth merely  as  one  branch  of  scientific  study,  we  must 
of  course  cordially  agree  that  accuracy  in  recording 
facts  and  appreciation  of  their  relative  worth  and  inter- 


6  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

relationship  are  just  as  necessary  in  historical  study  as 
in  any  other  kind  of  study.  The  fact  that  a  book, 
though  interesting,  is  untrue,  of  course  removes  it  at  once 
from  the  category  of  history,  however  much  it  may  still 
deserve  to  retain  a  place  in  the  always  desirable  group 
of  volumes  which  deal  with  entertaining  fiction.  But 
the  converse  also  holds,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  per- 
mitting us  to  insist  upon  what  would  seem  to  be  the 
elementary  fact  that  a  book  which  is  written  to  be  read 
should  be  readable.  This  rather  obvious  truth  seems 
to  have  been  forgotten  by  some  of  the  more  zealous 
scientific  historians,  who  apparently  hold  that  the  worth 
of  a  historical  book  is  directly  in  proportion  to  the 
impossibility  of  reading  it,  save  as  a  painful  duty.  Now 
I  am  willing  that  history  shall  be  treated  as  a  branch 
of  science,  but  only  on  condition  that  it  also  remains 
a  branch  of  literature;  and,  furthermore,  I  believe  that 
as  the  field  of  science  encroaches  on  the  field  of 
literature  there  should  be  a  corresponding  encroach- 
ment of  literature  upon  science;  and  I  hold  that  one  of 
the  great  needs,  which  can  only  be  met  by  very  able 
men  whose  culture  is  broad  enough  to  include  literature 
as  well  as  science,  is  the  need  of  books  for  scientific 
laymen.  We  need  a  literature  of  science  which  shall 
be  readable.  So  far  from  doing  away  with  the  school 
of  great  historians,  the  school  of  Polybius  and  Tacitus, 
Gibbon  and  Macaulay,  we  need  merely  that  the  future 
writers  of  history,  without  losing  the  qualities  which 
have  made  these  men  great,  shall  also  utilize  the  new 
facts  and  new  methods  which  science  has  put  at  their 
disposal.  Dryness  is  not  in  itself  a  measure  of  value. 
No  'scientific'  treatise  about  St.  Louis  will  displace 
Joinville,  for  the  very  reason  that  Joinville's  place  is  in 
both   history   and   literature;   no   minute   study   of   the 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  7 

Napoleonic  wars  will  teach  us  more  than  Marbot — and 
Marbot  is  as  interesting  as  Walter  Scott,  Moreover, 
certain  at  least  of  the  branches  of  science  should  like- 
wise be  treated  by  masters  in  the  art  of  presentment, 
so  that  the  layman  interested  in  science,  no  less  than 
the  layman  interested  in  history,  shall  have  on  his 
shelves  classics  which  can  be  read.  Whether  this  wish 
be  or  be  not  capable  of  realization,  it  assuredly  re- 
mains true  that  the  great  historian  of  the  future  must 
essentially  represent  the  ideal  striven  after  by  the  great 
historians  of  the  past.  The  industrious  collector  of  facts 
occupies  an  honourable,  but  not  an  exalted,  position,  and 
the  scientific  historian  who  produces  books  which  are  not 
literature  must  rest  content  with  the  honour,  substantial, 
but  not  of  the  highest  type,  that  belongs  to  him  who 
gathers  material  which  some  time  some  great  master 
shall  arise  to  use. 

Yet,  while  freely  conceding  all  that  can  be  said  of  the 
masters  of  literature,  we  must  insist  upon  the  historian 
of  mankind  working  in  the  scientific  spirit,  and  using 
the  treasure-houses  of  science.  He  who  would  fully 
treat  of  man  must  know  at  least  something  of  biology, 
of  the  science  that  treats  of  living,  breathing  things; 
and  especially  of  that  science  of  evolution  which  is 
inseparably  connected  with  the  great  name  of  Darwin. 
Of  course  there  is  no  exact  parallelism  between  the 
birth,  growth,  and  death  of  species  in  the  animal  world, 
and  the  birth,  growth,  and  death  of  societies  in  the 
world  of  man.  Yet  there  is  a  certain  parallelism. 
There  are  strange  analogies;  it  may  be  that  there  are 
homologies. 

How  far  the  resemblances  between  the  two  sets  of 
phenomena  are  more  than  accidental,  how  far  biology 
can  be  used  as  an  aid  in  the  interpretation  of  human 


8  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

history,  we  cannot  at  present  say.  The  historian  should 
never  forget,  what  the  highest  type  of  scientific  man 
is  always  teaching  us  to  remember,  that  willingness  to 
admit  ignorance  is  a  prime  factor  in  developing  wisdom 
out  of  knowledge.  Wisdom  is  advanced  by  research 
which  enables  us  to  add  to  knowledge;  and,  moreover, 
the  way  for  wisdom  is  made  ready  when  men  who 
record  facts  of  vast  but  unknown  import,  if  asked 
to  explain  their  full  significance,  are  willing  frankly  to 
answer  that  they  do  not  know.  The  research  which 
enables  us  to  add  to  the  sum  of  complete  knowledge 
stands  first;  but  second  only  stands  the  research  which, 
while  enabling  us  clearly  to  pose  the  problem,  also  re- 
quires us  to  say  that  with  our  present  knowledge  we  can 
offer  no  complete  solution. 

Let  me  illustrate  what  I  mean  by  an  instance  or  two 
taken  from  one  of  the  most  fascinating  branches  of 
world-history,  the  history  of  the  higher  forms  of  life,  of 
mammalian  life,  on  this  globe. 

Geologists  and  astronomers  are  not  agreed  as  to  the 
length  of  time  necessary  for  the  changes  that  have  taken 
place.  At  any  rate,  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
years,  some  millions  of  years,  have  passed  by  since  in  the 
eocene,  at  the  beginning  of  the  tertiary  period,  we  find 
the  traces  of  an  abundant,  varied,  and  highly  developed 
mammalian  life  on  the  land  masses  out  of  which  have 
grown  the  continents  as  we  see  them  to-day.  The  ages 
swept  by,  until,  with  the  advent  of  man  substantially  in 
the  physical  shape  in  which  we  now  know  him,  we  also 
find  a  mammalian  fauna  not  essentially  different  in  kind, 
though  widely  differing  in  distribution,  from  that  of  the 
present  day.  Throughout  this  immense  period  form 
succeeds  form,  type  succeeds  type,  in  obedience  to  laws 
of  evolution,  of  progress  and  retrogression,  of  develop- 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  9 

ment  and  death,  which  we  as  yet  understand  only  in  the 
most  imperfect  manner.  As  knowledge  increases  our 
wisdom  is  often  turned  into  foolishness,  and  many  of  the 
phenomena  of  evolution,  which  seemed  clearly  explic- 
able to  the  learned  master  of  science  who  founded  these 
lectures,  to  us  nowadays  seem  far  less  satisfactorily 
explained.  The  scientific  men  of  most  note  now  differ 
widely  in  their  estimates  of  the  relative  parts  played 
in  evolution  by  natural  selection,  by  mutation,  by  the 
inheritance  of  acquired  characteristics;  and  we  study 
their  writings  with  a  growing  impression  that  there  are 
forces  at  work  which  our  blinded  eyes  wholly  fail  to 
apprehend ;  and  where  this  is  the  case  the  part  of 
wisdom  is  to  say  that  we  believe  we  have  such  and  such 
partial  explanations,  but  that  we  are  not  warranted  in 
saying  that  we  have  the  whole  explanation.  In  tracing 
the  history  of  the  development  of  faunal  life  during  this 
period,  the  age  of  mammals,  there  are  some  facts  which 
are  clearly  established,  some  great  and  sweeping  changes 
for  which  we  can  with  certainty  ascribe  reasons.  There 
are  other  facts  as  to  which  we  grope  in  the  dark,  and 
vast  changes,  vast  catastrophes,  of  which  we  can  give 
no  adequate  explanation. 

Before  illustrating  these  types,  let  us  settle  one  or  two 
matters  of  terminology.  In  the  changes,  the  develop- 
ment and  extinction,  of  species  we  must  remember  that 
such  expressions  as  *a  new  species,'  or  as  'a  species 
becoming  extinct,'  are  each  commonly  and  indiscrim- 
inately used  to  express  totally  different  and  opposite 
meanings.  Of  course  the  'new'  species  is  not  new  in 
the  sense  that  its  ancestors  appeared  later  on  the  globe's 
surface  than  those  of  any  old  species  tottering  to  extinc- 
tion. Phylogenetically,  each  animal  now  living  must 
necessarily    trace    its    ancestral    descent    back    through 


10  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

countless  generations,  through  aeons  of  time,  to  the 
early  stages  of  the  appearance  of  life  on  the  globe.  All 
that  we  mean  by  a  'new'  species  is  that  from  some 
cause,  or  set  of  causes,  one  of  these  ancestral  stems 
slowly  or  suddenly  develops  into  a  form  unlike  any  that 
has  preceded  it;  so  that  while  in  one  form  of  life  the 
ancestral  type  is  continuously  repeated  and  the  old  species 
continues  to  exist,  in  another  form  of  life  there  is  a 
deviation  from  the  ancestral  type  and  a  new  species  ap- 
pears. 

Similarly,  'extinction  of  species'  is  a  term  which  has 
two  entirely  different  meanings.  The  type  may  become 
extinct  by  dying  out  and  leaving  no  descendants.  Or 
it  may  die  out  because,  as  the  generations  go  by,  there 
is  change,  slow  or  swift,  until  a  new  form  is  produced. 
Thus  in  one  case  the  line  of  life  comes  to  an  end. 
In  the  other  case  it  changes  into  something  different. 
The  huge  titanothere,  and  the  small  three-toed  horse, 
both  existed  at  what  may  roughly  be  called  the  same 
period  of  the  world's  history,  back  in  the  middle  of  the 
mammalian  age.  Both  are  extinct  in  the  sense  that 
each  has  completely  disappeared  and  that  nothing  like 
either  is  to  be  found  in  the  world  to-day.  But  whereas 
all  the  individual  titanotheres  finally  died  out,  leaving 
no  descendants,  a  number  of  the  three-toed  horses  did 
leave  descendants,  and  these  descendants,  constantly 
changing  as  the  ages  went  by,  finally  developed  into  the 
highly  specialized  one-toed  horses,  asses,  and  zebras  of 
to-day. 

The  analogy  between  the  facts  thus  indicated  and 
certain  facts  in  the  development  of  human  societies  is 
striking.  A  further  analogy  is  supplied  by  a  very 
curious  tendency  often  visible  in  cases  of  intense  and 
extreme  specialization.     When  an  animal  form  becomes 


Biological  A n alogies  in  History  1 1 

highly  specialized,  the  type  at  first,  because  of  its 
specialization,  triumphs  over  its  allied  rivals  and  its 
enemies,  and  attains  a  great  development;  until  in  many 
cases  the  specialization  becomes  so  extreme  that  from 
some  cause  unknown  to  us,  or  at  which  we  merely  guess, 
it  disappears.  The  new  species  which  mark  a  new  era 
commonly  come  from  the  less  specialized  types,  the  less 
distinctive,  dominant,  and  striking  types,  of  the  preced- 
ing era. 

When  dealing  with  the  changes,  cataclysmic  or  gradual, 
which  divide  one  period  of  palaeontological  history  from 
another,  we  can  sometimes  assign  causes,  and  again  we 
cannot  even  guess  at  them.  In  the  case  of  single  species, 
or  of  faunas  of  very  restricted  localities,  the  explana- 
tion is  often'self-evident.  A  comparatively  slight  change 
in  the  amount  of  moisture  in  the  climate,  with  the  at- 
tendant change  in  vegetation,  might  readily  mean  the  de- 
struction of  a  group  of  huge  herbivores  with  a  bodily  size 
such  that  they  needed  a  vast  quantity  of  food,  and  with 
teeth  so  weak  or  so  peculiar  that  but  one  or  two  kinds 
of  plants  could  furnish  this  food.  Again,  we  now  know 
that  the  most  deadly  foes  of  the  higher  forms  of  life 
are  various  lower  forms  of  life,  such  as  insects,  or  micro- 
scopic creatures  conveyed  into  the  blood  by  insects. 
There  are  districts  in  South  America  where  many  large 
animals,  wild  and  domestic,  cannot  live  because  of  the 
presence  either  of  certain  ticks  or  of  certain  baleful  flies. 
In  Africa  there  is  a  terrible  genus  of  poison  fly,  each 
species  acting  as  the  host  of  microscopic  creatures  which 
are  deadly  to  certain  of  the  higher  vertebrates.  One  of 
these  species,  though  harmless  to  man,  is  fatal  to  all 
domestic  animals,  and  this  although  harmless  to  the 
closely-related  wild  kinsfolk  of  these  animals.  Another 
is  fatal  to  man  himself,  being  the  cause  of  the  'sleeping 


1 2  Biological  A nalogies  in  History 

sickness,'  which  in  many  large  districts  has  killed  out  the 
entire  population.  Of  course  the  development  or  the  ex- 
tension of  the  range  of  any  such  insects,  and  any  one  of 
many  other  causes  which  we  see  actually  at  work  around 
us,  would  readily  account  for  the  destruction  of  some 
given  species  or  even  for  the  destruction  of  several  species 
in  a  limited  area  of  country. 

When  whole  faunal  groups  die  out,  over  large  areas, 
the  question  is  different,  and  may  or  may  not  be  sus- 
ceptible of  explanation  with  the  knowledge  we  actually 
possess.  In  the  old  arctogaeal  continent,  for  instance, 
in  what  is  now  Europe,  Asia,  and  North  America,  the 
glacial  period  made  a  complete,  but  of  course  explicable, 
change  in  the  faunal  life  of  the  region.  At  one  time 
the  continent  held  a  rich  and  varied  fauna.  Then  a 
period  of  great  cold  supervened,  and  a  different  fauna 
succeeded  the  first.  The  explanation  of  the  change  is 
obvious. 

But  in  many  other  cases  we  cannot  so  much  as 
hazard  a  guess  at  why  a  given  change  occurred.  One 
of  the  most  striking  instances  of  these  inexplicable 
changes  is  that  afforded  by  the  history  of  South 
America  toward  the  close  of  the  tertiary  period.  For 
ages  South  America  had  been  an  island  by  itself,  cut 
off  from  North  America  at  the  very  time  that  the  latter 
was  at  least  occasionally  in  land  communication  with 
Asia.  During  this  time  a  very  peculiar  fauna  grew  up 
in  South  America,  some  of  the  types  resembling  nothing 
now  existing,  while  others  are  recognizable  as  ancestral 
forms  of  the  ant-eaters,  sloths,  and  armadillos  of  to-day. 
It  was  a  peculiar  and  diversified  mammalian  fauna,  of, 
on  the  whole,  rather  small  species,  and  without  any 
representatives  of  the  animals  with  which  man  has  been 
most  familiar  during  his  career  on  this  earth. 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  13 

Towards  the  end  of  the  tertiary  period  there  was  an  up- 
heaval of  land  between  this  old  South  American  island 
and  North  America,  near  what  is  now  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama,  thereby  making  a  bridge  across  which  the 
teeming  animal  life  of  the  northern  continent  had  access 
to  this  queer  southern  continent.  There  followed  an 
inrush  of  huge,  or  swift,  or  formidable  creatures  which 
had  attained  their  development  in  the  fierce  competition 
of  the  arctogaeal  realm.  Elephants,  camels,  horses, 
tapirs,  swine,  sabre-toothed  tigers,  big  cats,  wolves, 
bears,  deer,  crowded  into  South  America,  warring  each 
against  the  other  incomers  and  against  the  old  long- 
existing  forms.  A  riot  of  life  followed.  Not  only  was 
the  character  of  the  South  American  fauna  totally 
changed  by  the  invasion  of  these  creatures  from  the 
north,  which  soon  swarmed  over  the  continent,  but  it 
was  also  changed  through  the  development  wrought  in 
the  old  inhabitants  by  the  severe  competition  to  which 
they  were  exposed.  Many  of  the  smaller  or  less  capable 
types  died  out.  Others  developed  enormous  bulk  or 
complete  armour  protection,  and  thereby  saved  them- 
selves from  the  new  beasts.  In  consequence,  South 
America  soon  became  populated  with  various  new  species 
of  mastodons,  sabre-toothed  tigers,  camels,  horses,  deer, 
cats,  wolves,  hooved  creatures  of  strange  shapes  and 
some  of  them  of  giant  size,  all  of  these  being  descended 
from  the  immigrant  types ;  and  side  by  side  with  them 
there  grew  up  large  autochthonous  ungulates,  giant 
ground  sloths  wellnigh  as  large  as  elephants,  and  ar- 
moured creatures  as  bulky  as  an  ox  but  structurally  of 
the  armadillo  or  ant-eater  type;  and  some  of  these  latter 
not  only  held  their  own,  but  actually  in  their  turn  wan- 
dered north  over  the  isthmus  and  invaded  North  America. 
A  fauna  as  varied  as  that  of  Africa  to-day,  as  abundant 


14  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

in  species  and  individuals,  even  more  noteworthy,  because 
of  its  huge  size  or  odd  type,  and  because  of  the  terrific 
prowess  of  the  more  formidable  flesh-eaters,  was  thus 
developed  in  South  America,  and  flourished  for  a  period 
which  human  history  would  call  very  long  indeed,  but 
which  geologically  was  short. 

Then,  for  no  reason  that  we  can  assign,  destruction 
fell  on  this  fauna.  All  the  great  and  terrible  creatures 
died  out,  the  same  fate  befalling  the  changed  representa- 
tives of  the  old  autochthonous  fauna  and  the  descendants 
of  the  migrants  that  had  come  down  from  the  north. 
Ground  sloth  and  glyptodon,  sabre-tooth,  horse  and 
mastodon,  and  all  the  associated  animals  of  large  size, 
vanished,  and  South  America,  though  still  retaining  its 
connexion  with  North  America,  once  again  became  a 
land  with  a  mammalian  life  small  and  weak  compared 
to  that  of  North  America  and  the  Old  World.  Its  fauna 
is  now  marked,  for  instance,  by  the  presence  of  medium- 
sized  deer  and  cats,  fox-like  wolves,  and  small  camel-like 
creatures,  as  well  as  by  the  presence  of  small  armadillos, 
sloths,  and  ant-eaters.  In  other  words,  it  includes 
diminutive  representatives  of  the  giants  of  the  preced- 
ing era,  both  of  the  giants  among  the  older  forms  of 
mammalia,  and  of  the  giants  among  the  new  and  intrusive 
kinds.  The  change  was  widespread  and  extraordinary, 
and  with  our  present  means  of  information  it  is  wholly 
inexplicable.  There  was  no  ice  age,  and  it  is  hard  to 
imagine  any  cause  which  would  account  for  the  extinc- 
tion of  so  many  species  of  huge  or  moderate  size,  while 
smaller  representatives,  and  here  and  there  medium-sized 
representatives,  of  many  of  them  were  left. 

Now  as  to  all  of  these  phenomena  in  the  evolution  of 
species,  there  are,  if  not  homologies,  at  least  certain 
analogies,    in   the   history   of   human    societies,    in   the 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  15 

history  of  the  rise  to  prominence,  of  the  development 
and  change,  of  the  temporary  dominance,  and  death  or 
transformation,  of  the  groups  of  varying  kind  which  form 
races  or  nations.  Here,  as  in  biology,  it  is  necessary  to 
keep  in  mind  that  we  use  each  of  the  words  'birth'  and 
'death,'  'youth'  and  'age,'  often  very  loosely,  and  some- 
times as  denoting  either  one  of  two  totally  different  con- 
ceptions. Of  course,  in  one  sense  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  an  'old'  or  a  'young'  nation,  any  more  than  there  is  an 
'old'  or  'young'  family.  Phylogenetically,  the  line  of 
ancestral  descent  must  be  of  exactly  the  same  length  for 
every  existing  individual,  and  for  every  group  of  indi- 
viduals, whether  forming  a  family  or  a  nation.  All  that 
can  properly  be  meant  by  the  terms  'new'  and  'young'  is 
that  in  a  given  line  of  descent  there  has  suddenly  come  a 
period  of  rapid  change.  This  change  may  arise  either 
from  a  new  development  or  transformation  of  the  old 
elements,  or  else  from  a  new  grouping  of  these  elements 
with  other  and  varied  elements ;  so  that  the  words  'new' 
nation  or  'young'  nation  may  have  a  real  difference  of 
significance  in  one  case  from  what  they  have  in  another. 
As  in  biology,  so  in  human  history,  a  new  form  may 
result  from  the  specialization  of  a  long-existing,  and 
hitherto  very  slowly  changing,  generalized  or  non-spe- 
cialized form;  as,  for  instance,  occurs  when  a  barbaric 
race  from  a  variety  of  causes  suddenly  develops  a  more 
complex  cultivation  and  civilization.  This  is  what  oc- 
curred, for  instance,  in  Western  Europe  during  the  cen- 
turies of  the  Teutonic  and,  later,  the  Scandinavian  ethnic 
overflows  from  the  north.  All  the  modern  countries  of 
Western  Europe  are  descended  from  the  states  created 
by  these  northern  invaders.  When  first  created  they 
would  be  called  'new'  or  'young'  states  in  the  sense  that 
part  or  all  of  the  people  composing  them  were  descended 


1 6  Biological  A  nalogies  in  History 

from  races  that  hitherto  had  not  been  civilized,  and  that 
therefore,  for  the  first  time,  entered  on  the  career  of 
civiHzed  communities.  In  the  southern  part  of  Western 
Europe  the  new  states  thus  formed  consisted  in  bulk  of 
the  inhabitants  already  in  the  land  under  the  Roman 
Empire;  and  it  was  here  that  the  new  kingdoms  first 
took  shape.  Through  a  reflex  action  their  influence  then 
extended  back  into  the  cold  forests  from  which  the  in- 
vaders had  come,  and  Germany  and  Scandinavia  wit- 
nessed the  rise  of  communities  with  essentially  the  same 
civilization  as  their  southern  neighbours ;  though  in  those 
communities,  unlike  the  southern  communities,  there  was 
no  infusion  of  new  blood,  so  that  the  new  civilized  nations 
which  gradually  developed  were  composed  entirely  of 
members  of  the  same  races  which  in  the  same  regions  had 
for  ages  lived  the  life  of  a  slowly  changing  barbarism. 
The  same  was  true  of  the  Slavs  and  the  slavonized  Finns 
of  Eastern  Europe,  when  an  infiltration  of  Scandinavian 
leaders  from  the  north,  and  an  infiltration  of  Byzantine 
culture  from  the  south,  joined  to  produce  the  changes 
which  have  gradually,  out  of  the  little  Slav  communities 
of  the  forest  and  the  steppe,  formed  the  mighty  Russian 
Empire  of  to-day. 

Again,  the  new  form  may  represent  merely  a  splitting 
off  from  a  long  established,  highly  developed  and  special- 
ized nation.  In  this  case  the  nation  is  usually  spoken  of 
as  a  'young,'  and  is  correctly  spoken  of  as  a  'new,'  nation; 
but  the  term  should  always  be  used  with  a  clear  sense  of 
the  difference  between  what  is  described  in  such  case,  and 
what  is  described  by  the  same  term  in  speaking  of  a 
civilized  nation  just  developed  from  barbarism.  Carthage 
and  Syracuse  were  new  cities  compared  to  Tyre  and 
Corinth ;  but  the  Greek  or  Phoenician  race  was  in  every 
sense  of  the  word  as  old  in  the  new  city  as  in  the  old  city. 


Biological  A  nalogies  in  History  1 7 

So,  nowadays,  Victoria  or  Manitoba  is  a  new  community 
compared  with  England  or  Scotland;  but  the  ancestral 
type  of  civilization  and  culture  is  as  old  in  one  case  as  in 
the  other.  I  of  course  do  not  mean  for  a  moment  that 
great  changes  are  not  produced  by  the  mere  fact  that  the 
old  civilized  race  is  suddenly  placed  in  surroundings 
where  it  has  again  to  go  through  the  work  of  taming  the 
wilderness,  a  work  finished  many  centuries  before  in  the 
original  home  of  the  race;  I  merely  mean  that  the  ances- 
tral history  is  the  same  in  each  case.  We  can  rightly  use 
the  phrase  'a  new  people,'  in  speaking  of  Canadians  or 
Australians,  Americans  or  Afrikanders.  But  we  use  it  in 
an  entirely  different  sense  from  that  in  which  we  use  it 
when  speaking  of  such  communities  as  those  founded  by 
the  Northmen  and  their  descendants  during  that  period 
of  astonishing  growth  which  saw  the  descendants  of  the 
Norse  sea-thieves  conquer  and  transform  Normandy, 
Sicily  and  the  British  Islands;  we  use  it  in  an  entirely 
different  sense  from  that  in  which  we  use  it  when  speak- 
ing of  the  new  states  that  grew  up  around  Warsaw,  Kief, 
Novgorod,  and  Moscow,  as  the  wild  savages  of  the 
steppes  and  the  marshy  forests  struggled  haltingly  and 
stumblingly  upward  to  become  builders  of  cities  and  to 
form  stable  governments.  The  kingdoms  of  Charle- 
magne and  Alfred  were  'new,'  compared  to  the  empire 
on  the  Bosphorus ;  they  were  also  in  every  way  different ; 
their  lines  of  ancestral  descent  had  nothing  in  common 
with  that  of  the  polyglot  realm  which  paid  tribute  to  the 
Caesars  of  Byzantium;  their  social  problems  and  after- 
time  history  were  totally  different.  This  is  not  true  of 
those  'new'  nations  which  spring  direct  from  old  nations. 
Brazil,  the  Argentine,  the  United  States,  are  all  'new' 
nations,  compared  with  the  nations  of  Europe;  but,  with 
whatever  changes  in  detail,  their  civilization  is  neverthe- 


1 8  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

less  of  the  general  European  type,  as  shown  in  Portugal, 
Spain,  and  England.  The  differences  between  these  'new' 
American  and  these  'old'  European  nations  are  not  as 
great  as  those  which  separate  the  'new'  nations  one  from 
another,  and  the  'old'  nations  one  from  another.  There 
are  in  each  case  very  real  differences  between  the  new  and 
the  old  nation ;  differences  both  for  good  and  for  evil ; 
but  in  each  case  there  is  the  same  ancestral  history  to 
reckon  with,  the  same  type  of  civilization,  with  its  at- 
tendant benefits  and  shortcomings ;  and,  after  the  pioneer 
stages  are  passed,  the  problems  to  be  solved,  in  spite  of 
superficial  differences,  are  in  their  essence  the  same ;  they 
are  those  that  confront  all  civilized  peoples,  not  those  that 
confront  only  peoples  struggling  from  barbarism  into 
civilization. 

So,  when  we  speak  of  the  'death'  of  a  tribe,  a  nation, 
or  a  civilization,  the  term  may  be  used  for  either  one  of 
two  totally  different  processes,  the  analogy  with  what 
occurs  in  biological  history  being  complete.  Certain 
tribes  of  savages,  the  Tasmanians,  for  instance,  and 
various  little  clans  of  American  Indians,  have  within  the 
last  century  or  two  completely  died  out;  all  of  the  indi- 
viduals have  perished,  leaving  no  descendants,  and  the 
blood  has  disappeared.  Certain  other  tribes  of  Indians 
have  as  tribes  disappeared  or  are  now  disappearing;  but 
their  blood  remains,  being  absorbed  into  the  veins  of  the 
white  intruders,  or  of  the  black  men  introduced  by  those 
white  intruders;  so  that  in  reality  they  are  merely  being 
transformed  into  something  absolutely  different  from 
what  they  were.  In  the  United  States,  in  the  new  State 
of  Oklahoma,  the  Creeks,  Cherokees,  Chickasaws,  Dela- 
wares,  and  other  tribes,  are  in  process  of  absorption  into 
the  mass  of  the  white  population;  when  the  state  was 
admitted  a  couple  of  years  ago,  one  of  the  two  senators, 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  19 

and  three  of  the  five  representatives  in  Congress,  were 
partly  of  Indian  blood.  In  but  a  few  years  these  Indian 
tribes  will  have  disappeared  as  completely  as  those  that 
have  actually  died  out;  but  the  disappearance  will  be  by 
absorption  and  transformation  into  the  mass  of  the 
American  population. 

A  like  wide  diversity  in  fact  may  be  covered  in  the 
statement  that  a  civilization  has  'died  out.'  The  nation- 
ality and  culture  of  the  wonderful  city-builders  of  the 
lower  Mesopotamian  Plain  have  completely  disappeared, 
and,  though  doubtless  certain  influences  dating  therefrom 
are  still  at  work,  they  are  in  such  changed  and  hidden 
form  as  to  be  unrecognizable.  But  the  disappearance  of 
the  Roman  Empire  was  of  no  such  character.  There  was 
complete  change,  far-reaching  transformation,  and  at  one 
period  a  violent  dislocation;  but  it  would  not  be  correct 
to  speak  either  of  the  blood  or  the  culture  of  old  Rome  as 
extinct.  We  are  not  yet  in  a  position  to  dogmatize  as  to 
the  permanence  or  evanescence  of  the  various  strains  of 
blood  that  go  to  make  up  every  civilized  nationality;  but 
it  is  reasonably  certain  that  the  blood  of  the  old  Roman 
still  flows  through  the  veins  of  the  modern  Italian;  and 
though  there  has  been  much  intermixture,  from  many 
different  foreign  sources — from  foreign  conquerors  and 
from  foreign  slaves — yet  it  is  probable  that  the  Italian 
type  of  to-day  finds  its  dominant  ancestral  type  in  the 
ancient  Latin.  As  for  the  culture,  the  civilization  of 
Rome,  this  is  even  more  true.  It  has  suffered  a  complete 
transformation,  partly  by  natural  growth,  partly  by  ab- 
sorption of  totally  alien  elements,  such  as  a  Semitic  re- 
ligion, and  certain  Teutonic  governmental  and  social  cus- 
toms; but  the  process  was  not  one  of  extinction,  but  one 
of  growth  and  transformation,  both  from  within  and  by 
the  accretion  of  outside  elements.     In  France  and  Spain 


20  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

the  inheritance  of  Latin  blood  is  small;  but  the  Roman 
culture  which  was  forced  on  those  countries  has  been  tena- 
ciously retained  by  them,  throughout  all  their  subsequent 
ethnical  and  political  changes,  as  the  basis  on  which  their 
civilizations  have  been  built.  Moreover,  the  permanent 
spreading  of  Roman  influence  was  not  limited  to  Europe. 
It  has  extended  to  and  over  half  of  that  new  world  which 
was  not  even  dreamed  of  during  the  thousand  years  of 
brilliant  life  between  the  birth  and  the  death  of  Pagan 
Rome.  This  new  world  was  discovered  by  one  Italian, 
and  its  mainland  first  reached  and  named  by  another ;  and 
in  it,  over  a  territory  many  times  the  size  of  Trajan's 
empire,  the  Spanish,  French  and  Portuguese  adventurers 
founded,  beside  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  Amazon,  along 
the  flanks  of  the  Andes  and  in  the  shadow  of  the  snow- 
capped volcanoes  of  Mexico,  from  the  Rio  Grande  to  the 
Straits  of  Magellan,  communities,  now  flourishing  and 
growing  apace,  which  in  speech  and  culture,  and  even  as 
regards  one  strain  in  their  blood,  are  the  lineal  heirs  of 
the  ancient  Latin  civilization.  When  we  speak  of  the 
disappearance,  the  passing  away,  of  ancient  Babylon  or 
Nineveh,  and  of  ancient  Rome,  we  are  using  the  same 
terms  to  describe  totally  different  phenomena. 

The  anthropologist  and  historian  of  to-day  realize 
much  more  clearly  than  their  predecessors  of  a  couple 
of  generations  back  how  artificial  most  great  nationalities 
are,  and  how  loose  is  the  terminology  usually  employed 
to  describe  them.  There  is  an  element  of  unconscious  and 
rather  pathetic  humour  in  the  simplicity  of  half  a  century 
ago  which  spoke  of  the  Aryan  and  the  Teuton  with 
reverential  admiration,  as  if  the  words  denoted,  not 
merely  something  definite,  but  something  ethnologically 
sacred ;  the  writers  having  much  the  same  pride  and  faith 
in  their  own  and  their  fellow  countryman's  purity  of  de- 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  21 

scent  from  these  imaginary  Aryan  or  Teutonic  ancestors 
that  was  felt  a  few  generations  earlier  by  the  various 
noble  families  who  traced  their  lineage  direct  to  Odin, 
Aeneas,  or  Noah.  Nowadays,  of  course,  all  students 
recognize  that  there  may  not  be,  and  often  is  not,  the 
slightest  connexion  between  kinship  in  blood  and  kinship 
in  tongue.  In  America  we  find  three  races,  white,  red, 
and  black,  and  three  tongues,  English,  French,  and  Span- 
ish, mingled  in  such  a  way  that  the  lines  of  cleavage  of 
race  continually  run  at  right  angles  to  the  lines  of  cleavage 
of  speech;  there  being  communities  practically  of  pure 
blood  of  each  race  found  speaking  each  language.  Aryan 
and  Teutonic  are  terms  having  very  distinct  linguistic 
meanings ;  but  whether  they  have  any  such  ethnical  mean- 
ings as  were  formerly  attributed  to  them,  is  so  doubtful 
that  we  cannot  even  be  sure  whether  the  ancestors  of  most 
of  those  we  call  Teutons  originally  spoke  an  Aryan  tongue 
at  all.  The  term  Celtic,  again,  is  perfectly  clear  when 
used  linguistically;  but  when  used  to  describe  a  race  it 
means  almost  nothing  until  we  find  out  which  one  of 
several  totally  different  terminologies  the  writer  or 
speaker  is  adopting.  If,  for  instance,  the  term  is  used  to 
designate  the  short-headed,  medium-sized  type  common 
throughout  middle  Europe,  from  east  to  west,  it  denotes 
something  entirely  different  from  what  is  meant  when 
the  name  is  applied  to  the  tall,  yellow-haired  opponents  of 
the  Romans  and  the  later  Greeks;  while  if  used  to  desig- 
nate any  modern  nationality,  it  becomes  about  as  loose 
and  meaningless  as  the  term  Anglo-Saxon  itself. 

Most  of  the  great  societies  which  have  developed  a  high 
civilization  and  have  played  a  dominant  part  in  the  world 
have  been — and  are — artificial ;  not  merely  in  social  struc- 
ture, but  in  the  sense  of  including  totally  different  race 
types.     A  great  nation  rarely  belongs  to  any  one  race. 


22  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

though  its  citizens  generally  have  one  essentially  national 
speech.  Yet  the  curious  fact  remains  that  these  great 
artificial  societies  acquire  such  unity  that  in  each  one  all 
the  parts  feel  a  subtle  sympathy,  and  move  or  cease  to 
move,  go  forward  or  go  back,  all  together,  in  response  to 
some  stir  or  throbbing,  very  powerful,  and  yet  not  to  be 
discerned  by  our  senses.  National  unity  is  far  more  apt 
than  race  unity  to  be  a  fact  to  reckon  with;  until  indeed 
we  come  to  race  differences  as  fundamental  as  those 
which  divide  from  one  another  the  half-dozen  great 
ethnic  divisions  of  mankind,  when  they  become  so  im- 
portant that  differences  of  nationality,  speech,  and  creed 
sink  into  littleness. 

An  ethnological  map  of  Europe  in  which  the  peoples 
were  divided  according  to  their  physical  and  racial  char- 
acteristics, such  as  stature,  coloration,  and  shape  of  head, 
would  bear  no  resemblance  whatever  to  a  map  giving 
the  political  divisions,  the  nationalities,  of  Europe ;  while 
on  the  contrary  a  linguistic  map  would  show  a  general 
correspondence  between  speech  and  nationality.  The 
northern  Frenchman  is  in  blood  and  physical  type  more 
nearly  allied  to  his  German-speaking  neighbour  than  to 
the  Frenchman  of  the  Mediterranean  seaboard;  and  the 
latter,  in  his  turn,  is  nearer  to  the  Catalan  than  to  the 
man  who  dwells  beside  the  Channel  or  along  the  tribu- 
taries of  the  Rhine.  But  in  essential  characteristics,  in 
the  qualities  that  tell  in  the  make-up  of  a  nationality,  all 
these  kinds  of  Frenchmen  feel  keenly  that  they  are  one, 
and  are  different  from  all  outsiders,  their  differences 
dwindling  into  insignificance,  compared  with  the  extraor- 
dinary, artificially  produced,  resemblances  which  bring 
them  together  and  w^ll  them  off  from  the  outside  world. 
The  same  is  true  when  we  compare  the  German  who 
dwells  where  the  Alpine  springs  of  the  Danube  and  the 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  23 

Rhine  interlace,  with  the  physically  different  German  of 
the  Baltic  lands.  The  same  is  true  of  Kentishman,  Cor- 
nishman,  and  Yorkshireman  in  England. 

In  dealing,  not  with  groups  of  human  beings  in  simple 
and  primitive  relations,  but  with  highly  complex,  highly 
specialized,  civilized,  or  semi-civilized  societies,  there  is 
need  of  great  caution  in  drawing  analogies  with  what 
has  occurred  in  the  development  of  the  animal  world. 
Yet  even  in  these  cases  it  is  curious  to  see  how  some  of 
the  phenomena  in  the  growth  and  disappearance  of  these 
complex,  artificial  groups  of  human  beings  resemble  what 
has  happened  in  myriads  of  instances  in  the  history  of 
life  on  this  planet. 

Why  do  great  artificial  empires,  whose  citizens  are 
knit  by  a  bond  of  speech  and  culture  much  more  than  by 
a  bond  of  blood,  show  periods  of  extraordinary  growth, 
and  again  of  sudden  or  lingering  decay?  In  some  cases 
we  can  answer  readily  enough ;  in  other  cases  we  cannot 
as  yet  even  guess  what  the  proper  answer  should  be.  If 
in  any  such  case  the  centrifugal  forces  overcome  the 
centripetal,  the  nation  will  of  course  fly  to  pieces,  and  the 
reason  for  its  failure  to  become  a  dominant  force  is 
patent  to  every  one.  The  minute  that  the  spirit  which 
finds  its  healthy  development  in  local  self-government, 
and  is  the  antidote  to  the  dangers  of  an  extreme  centraliza- 
tion, develops  into  mere  particularism,  into  inability  to 
combine  effectively  for  achievement  of  a  common  end, 
then  it  is  hopeless  to  expect  great  results.  Poland  and 
certain  Republics  of  the  western  hemisphere  are  the 
standard  examples  of  failure  of  this  kind;  and  the  United 
States  would  have  ranked  with  them,  and  her  name  would 
have  become  a  byword  of  derision,  if  the  forces  of  union 
had  not  triumphed  in  the  Civil  War.  So,  the  growth  of 
soft  luxury  after  it  has  reached  a  certain  point  becomes 


24  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

a  national  danger  patent  to  all.  Again,  it  needs  but  little 
of  the  vision  of  a  seer  to  foretell  what  must  happen  in 
any  community  if  the  average  woman  ceases  to  become 
the  mother  of  a  family  of  healthy  children,  if  the  average 
man  loses  the  will  and  the  power  to  work  up  to  old  age 
and  to  fight  whenever  the  need  arises.  If  the  homely, 
commonplace  virtues  die  out,  if  strength  of  character 
vanishes  in  graceful  self-indulgence,  if  the  virile  qualities 
atrophy,  then  the  nation  has  lost  what  no  material  pros- 
perity can  offset. 

But  there  are  plenty  of  other  phenomena  wholly  or 
partially  inexplicable.  It  is  easy  to  see  why  Rome  trended 
downward  when  great  slave-tilled  farms  spread  over  what 
had  once  been  a  country-side  of  peasant  proprietors,  when 
greed  and  luxury  and  sensuality  ate  like  acids  into  the 
fibre  of  the  upper  classes,  while  the  mass  of  the  citizens 
grew  to  depend  not  upon  their  own  exertions,  but  upon 
the  state,  for  their  pleasures  and  their  very  livelihood. 
But  this  does  not  explain  why  the  forward  movement 
stopped  at  different  times,  so  far  as  different  matters  were 
concerned;  at  one  time  as  regards  literature,  at  another 
time  as  regards  architecture,  at  another  time  as  regards 
city-building.  There  is  nothing  mysterious  about  Rome's 
dissolution  at  the  time  of  the  barbarian  invasions;  apart 
from  the  impoverishment  and  depopulation  of  the  Em- 
pire, its  fall  would  be  quite  sufficiently  explained  by  the 
mere  fact  that  the  average  citizen  had  lost  the  fighting 
edge,  an  essential  even  under  a  despotism,  and  therefore 
far  more  essential  in  free,  self-governing  communities 
such  as  those  of  the  English-speaking  peoples  of  to-day. 
The  mystery  is  rather  that  out  of  the  chaos  and  cor- 
ruption of  Roman  society  during  the  last  days  of  the 
oligarchic  republic,  there  should  have  sprung  an  Empire 
able  to  hold  things  with  reasonable  steadiness  for  three 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  25 

or  four  centuries.  But  why,  for  instance,  should  the 
higher  kinds  of  literary  productiveness  have  ceased  about 
the  beginning  of  the  second  century,  whereas  the  follow- 
ing centuries  witnessed  a  great  outbreak  of  energy  in  the 
shape  of  city-building  in  the  provinces,  not  only  in  West- 
ern Europe,  but  in  Africa?  We  cannot  even  guess  why 
the  springs  of  one  kind  of  energy  dried  up,  while  there 
was  yet  no  cessation  of  another  kind. 

Take  another  and  smaller  instance,  that  of  Holland. 
For  a  period  covering  a  little  more  than  the  seventeenth 
century,  Holland,  like  some  of  the  Italian  city  states  at 
an  earlier  period,  stood  on  the  dangerous  heights  of  great- 
ness, beside  nations  so  vastly  her  superior  in  territory  and 
population  as  to  make  it  inevitable  that  sooner  or  later 
she  must  fall  from  the  glorious  and  perilous  eminence  to 
which  she  had  been  raised  by  her  own  indomitable  soul. 
Her  fall  came;  it  could  not  have  been  indefinitely  post- 
poned; but  it  came  far  quicker  than  it  needed  to  come, 
because  of  shortcomings  on  her  part  to  which  both  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  would  be  wise  to  pay  heed. 
Her  government  was  singularly  ineffective,  the  decen- 
tralization being  such  as  often  to  permit  the  separatist, 
the  particularist,  spirit  of  the  provinces  to  rob  the  central 
authority  of  all  efficiency.  This  was  bad  enough.  But 
the  fatal  weakness  was  that  so  common  in  rich,  peace- 
loving  societies,  where  men  hate  to  think  of  war  as  possi- 
ble, and  try  to  justify  their  own  reluctance  to  face  it 
either  by  high-sounding  moral  platitudes,  or  else  by  a 
philosophy  of  short-sighted  materialism.  The  Dutch 
were  very  wealthy.  They  grew  to  believe  that  they 
could  hire  others  to  do  their  fighting  for  them  on  land; 
and  on  sea,  where  they  did  their  own  fighting,  and  fought 
very  well,  they  refused  in  time  of  peace  to  make  ready 
fleets  so  efficient,  as  either  to  insure  them  against  the 


2^  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

peace  being  broken,  or  else  to  give  them  the  victory  when 
vv^ar  came.  To  be  opulent  and  unarmed  is  to  secure  ease 
in  the  present  at  the  almost  certain  cost  of  disaster  in  the 
future. 

It  is  therefore  easy  to  see  why  Holland  lost  when  she 
did  her  position  among  the  powers;  but  it  is  far  more 
difficult  to  explain  why  at  the  same  time  there  should 
have  come  at  least  a  partial  loss  of  position  in  the  world 
of  art  and  letters.  Some  spark  of  divine  fire  burned 
itself  out  in  the  national  soul.  As  the  line  of  great  states- 
men, of  great  warriors,  by  land  and  sea,  came  to  an  end, 
so  the  line  of  the  great  Dutch  painters  ended.  The  loss 
of  pre-eminence  in  the  schools  followed  the  loss  of  pre- 
eminence in  camp  and  in  council  chamber. 

In  the  little  republic  of  Holland,  as  in  the  great  empire 
of  Rome,  it  was  not  death  which  came,  but  transforma- 
tion. Both  Holland  and  Italy  teach  us  that  races  that 
fall  may  rise  again.  In  Holland,  as  in  the  Scandinavian 
kingdoms  of  Norway  and  Sweden,  there  was  in  a  sense 
no  decadence  at  all.  There  was  nothing  analogous  to 
what  has  befallen  so  many  countries;  no  lowering  of  the 
general  standard  of  well-being,  no  general  loss  of  vitality, 
no  depopulation.  What  happened  was,  first  a  flowering 
time,  in  which  the  country's  men  of  action  and  men  of 
thought  gave  it  a  commanding  position  among  the  nations 
of  the  day;  then  this  period  of  command  passed,  and  the 
State  revolved  in  an  eddy,  aside  from  the  sweep  of  the 
mighty  current  of  world  life;  and  yet  the  people  them- 
selves in  their  internal  relations  remained  substantially 
unchanged,  and  in  many  fields  of  endeavour  have  now 
recovered  themselves,  and  play  again  a  leading  part. 

In  Italy,  where  history  is  recorded  for  a  far  longer 
time,  the  course  of  affairs  was  different.  When  the 
Roman  Empire  that  was  really  Roman  went  down  in 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  27 

ruin,  there  followed  an  interval  of  centuries  when  the 
gloom  was  almost  unrelieved.  Every  form  of  luxury  and 
frivolity,  of  contemptuous  repugnance  for  serious  work, 
of  enervating  self-indulgence,  every  form  of  vice  and 
weakness  which  we  regard  as  most  ominous  in  the  civili- 
zation of  to-day,  had  been  at  work  throughout  Italy  for 
generations.  The  Nation  had  lost  all  patriotism.  It  had 
ceased  to  bring  forth  fighters  or  workers,  had  ceased  to 
bring  forth  men  of  mark  of  any  kind;  and  the  remnant 
of  the  Italian  people  cowered  in  helpless  misery  among 
the  horse-hoofs  of  the  barbarians,  as  the  wild  northern 
bands  rode  in  to  take  the  land  for  a  prey  and  the  cities 
for  a  spoil.  It  was  one  of  the  great  cataclysms  of  his- 
tory ;  but  in  the  end  it  was  seen  that  what  came  had  been 
in  part  change  and  growth.  It  was  not  all  mere  destruc- 
tion. Not  only  did  Rome  leave  a  vast  heritage  of  lan- 
guage, culture,  law,  ideas,  to  all  the  modern  world;  but 
the  people  of  Italy  kept  the  old  blood  as  the  chief  strain 
in  their  veins.  In  a  few  centuries  came  a  wonderful  new 
birth  for  Italy.  Then  for  four  or  five  hundred  years 
there  was  a  growth  of  many  little  city  states  which,  in 
their  energy  both  in  peace  and  war,  in  their  fierce,  fervent 
life,  in  the  high  quality  of  their  men  of  arts  and  letters, 
and  in  their  utter  inability  to  combine  so  as  to  preserve 
order  among  themselves  or  to  repel  outside  invasion,  can 
not  unfairly  be  compared  with  classic  Greece.  Again 
Italy  fell,  and  the  land  was  ruled  by  Spaniard  or  French- 
man or  Austrian;  and  again,  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
there  came  for  the  third  time  a  wonderful  new  birth. 

Contrast  this  persistence  of  the  old  type  in  its  old 
home,  and  in  certain  lands  which  it  had  conquered,  with 
its  utter  disappearance  in  certain  other  lands  where  it  was 
intrusive,  but  where  it  at  one  time  seemed  as  firmly  estab- 
lished as  in  Italy — certainly  as  in  Spain  or  Gaul.     No 


28  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

more  curious  example  of  the  growth  and  disappearance 
of  a  national  type  can  be  found  than  in  the  case  of  the 
Graeco-Roman  dominion  in  Western  Asia  and  North 
Africa.  All  told  it  extended  over  nearly  a  thousand 
years,  from  the  days  of  Alexander  till  after  the  time  of 
Heraclius.  Throughout  these  lands  there  yet  remain  the 
ruins  of  innumerable  cities  which  tell  how  firmly  rooted 
that  dominion  must  once  have  been.  The  overshadowing 
and  far-reaching  importance  of  what  occurred  is  suffi- 
ciently shown  by  the  familiar  fact  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment was  written  in  Greek ;  while  to  the  early  Christians, 
North  Africa  seemed  as  much  a  Latin  land  as  Sicily  or 
the  Valley  of  the  Po.  The  intrusive  peoples  and  their 
culture  flourished  in  the  lands  for  a  period  twice  as  long 
as  that  which  has  elapsed  since,  with  the  voyage  of 
Columbus,  modern  history  may  fairly  be  said  to  have 
begun;  and  then  they  withered  like  dry  grass  before  the 
flame  of  the  Arab  invasion,  and  their  place  knew  them  no 
more.  They  overshadowed  the  ground;  they  vanished; 
and  the  old  types  reappeared  in  their  old  homes,  with 
beside  them  a  new  type,  the  Arab. 

Now,  as  to  all  these  changes  we  can  at  least  be  sure  of 
the  main  facts.  We  know  that  the  Hollander  remains  in 
Holland,  though  the  greatness  of  Holland  has  passed ;  we 
know  that  the  Latin  blood  remains  in  Italy,  whether  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent ;  and  that  the  Latin  culture  has  died 
out  in  the  African  realm  it  once  won,  while  it  has  lasted 
in  Spain  and  France,  and  thence  has  extended  itself  to 
continents  beyond  the  ocean.  We  may  not  know  the 
causes  of  the  facts,  save  partially ;  but  the  facts  themselves 
we  do  know.  But  there  are  other  cases  in  which  we  are 
at  present  ignorant  even  of  the  facts;  we  do  not  know 
what  the  changes  really  were,  still  less  the  hidden  causes 
and  meaning  of  these  changes.     Much  remains  to  be 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  ^\X 

found  out  before  we  can  speak  with  any  certainty  as  to 
whether  some  changes  mean  the  actual  dying  out  or  the 
mere  transformation  of  types.  It  is,  for  instance,  aston- 
ishing how  Httle  permanent  change  in  the  physical 
make-up  of  the  people  seems  to  have  been  worked  in 
Europe  by  the  migrations  of  the  races  in  historic  times. 
A  tall,  fair-haired,  long-skulled  race  penetrates  to  some 
southern  country  and  establishes  a  commonwealth.  The 
generations  pass.  There  is  no  violent  revolution,  no 
break  in  continuity  of  history,  nothing  in  the  written 
records  to  indicate  an  epoch-making  change  at  any  given 
moment;  and  yet  after  a  time  we  find  that  the  old  type 
has  reappeared  and  that  the  people  of  the  locality  do  not 
substantially  differ  in  physical  form  from  the  people  of 
other  localities  that  did  not  suffer  such  an  invasion.  Does 
this  mean  that  gradually  the  children  of  the  invaders  have 
dwindled  and  died  out ;  or,  as  the  blood  is  mixed  with  the 
ancient  blood,  has  there  been  a  change,  part  reversion  and 
part  assimilation,  to  the  ancient  type  in  its  old  surround- 
ings? Do  tint  of  skin,  eyes  and  hair,  shape  of  skull,  and 
stature,  change  in  the  new  environment,  so  as  to  be  like 
those  of  the  older  people  who  dwelt  in  this  environment? 
Do  the  intrusive  races,  without  change  of  blood,  tend 
under  the  pressure  of  their  new  surroundings  to  change 
in  type  so  as  to  resemble  the  ancient  people  of  the  land? 
Or,  as  the  strains  mingled,  has  the  new  strain  dwindled 
and  vanished,  from  causes  as  yet  obscure?  Has  the 
blood  of  the  Lombard  practically  disappeared  from  Italy, 
and  of  the  Visigoth  from  Spain,  or  does  it  still  flow  in 
large  populations  where  the  old  physical  type  has  once 
more  become  dominant?  Here  in  England,  the  long- 
skulled  men  of  the  long  barrows,  the  short-skulled  men 
of  the  round  barrows,  have  they  blended,  or  has  one  or 
the  other  type  actually  died  out;  or  are  they  merged  in 


30  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

some  older  race  which  they  seemingly  supplanted,  or  have 
they  adopted  the  tongue  and  civilization  of  some  later 
race  which  seemingly  destroyed  them?  We  cannot  say. 
We  do  not  know  which  of  the  widely  different  stocks 
now  speaking  Aryan  tongues  represents  in  physical  char- 
acteristics the  ancient  Aryan  type,  nor  where  the  type 
originated,  nor  how  or  why  it  imposed  its  language  on 
other  types,  nor  how  much  or  how  little  mixture  of  blood 
accompanied  the  change  of  tongue. 

The  phenomena  of  national  growth  and  decay,  both 
those  which  can  and  those  which  cannot  be  explained, 
have  been  peculiarly  in  evidence  during  the  four  cen- 
turies that  have  gone  by  since  the  discovery  of  America 
and  the  rounding  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  These 
have  been  the  four  centuries  of  by  far  the  most  intense 
and  constantly  accelerating  rapidity  of  movement  and 
development  that  the  world  has  yet  seen.  The  move- 
ment has  covered  all  the  fields  of  human  activity.  It  has 
witnessed  an  altogether  unexampled  spread  of  civilized 
mankind  over  the  world,  as  well  as  an  altogether  unex- 
ampled advance  in  man's  dominion  over  nature;  and  this 
together  with  a  literary  and  artistic  activity  to  be  matched 
in  but  one  previous  epoch.  This  period  of  extension  and 
development  has  been  that  of  one  race,  the  so-called  white 
race,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  the  group  of  peoples 
living  in  Europe,  who  undoubtedly  have  a  certain  kinship 
of  blood,  who  profess  the  Christian  religion,  and  trace 
back  their  culture  to  Greece  and  Rome. 

The  memories  of  men  are  short,  and  it  is  easy  to  forget 
how  brief  is  this  period  of  unquestioned  supremacy  of  the 
so-called  white  race.  It  is  but  a  thing  of  yesterday.  Dur- 
ing the  thousand  years  which  went  before  the  opening  of 
this  era  of  European  supremacy,  the  attitude  of  Asia  and 
Africa,  of  Hun  and  Mongol,  Turk  and  Tartar,  Arab  and 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  31 

Moor,  had  on  the  whole  been  that  of  successful  aggres- 
sion against  Europe.  More  than  a  century  went  by  after 
the  voyages  of  Columbus  before  the  mastery  in  war 
began  to  pass  from  the  Asiatic  to  the  European.  During 
that  time  Europe  produced  no  generals  or  conquerors  able 
to  stand  comparison  with  Selim  and  Solyman,  Baber  and 
Akbar.  Then  the  European  advance  gathered  mo- 
mentum; until  at  the  present  time  peoples  of  European 
blood  hold  dominion  over  all  America  and  Australia  and 
the  islands  of  the  sea,  over  most  of  Africa,  and  the  major 
half  of  Asia.  Much  of  this  world  conquest  is  merely 
political,  and  such  a  conquest  is  always  likely  in  the  long 
run  to  vanish.  But  very  much  of  it  represents  not  a 
merely  political,  but  an  ethnic  conquest ;  the  intrusive  peo- 
ple having  either  exterminated  or  driven  out  the  con- 
quered peoples,  or  else  having  imposed  upon  them  its 
tongue,  law,  culture,  and  religion,  together  with  a  strain 
of  its  blood.  During  this  period  substantially  all  of  the 
world  achievements  worth  remembering  are  to  be  credited 
to  the  people  of  European  descent.  The  first  exception 
of  any  consequence  is  the  wonderful  rise  of  Japan  within 
the  last  generation — a  phenomenon  unexampled  in  his- 
tory; for  both  in  blood  and  in  culture  the  Japanese  line  of 
ancestral  descent  is  as  remote  as  possible  from  ours,  and 
yet  Japan,  while  hitherto  keeping  most  of  what  was 
strongest  in  her  ancient  character  and  traditions,  has  as- 
similated with  curious  completeness  most  of  the  charac- 
teristics that  have  given  power  and  leadership  to  the  West. 
During  this  period  of  intense  and  feverish  activity 
among  the  peoples  of  European  stock,  first  one  and  then 
another  has  taken  the  lead.  The  movement  began  with 
Spain  and  Portugal.  Their  flowering  time  was  as  brief 
as  it  was  wonderful.  The  gorgeous  pages  of  their  annals 
are  illumined  by  the  figures  of  warriors,  explorers,  states- 


32  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

men,  poets,  and  painters.  Then  their  days  of  greatness 
ceased.  Many  partial  explanations  can  be  given,  but 
something  remains  behind,  some  hidden  force  for  evil, 
some  hidden  source  of  weakness  upon  which  we  cannot 
lay  our  hands.  Yet  there  are  many  signs  that  in  the 
New  World,  after  centuries  of  arrested  growth,  the  peo- 
ples of  Spanish  and  Portuguese  stock  are  entering  upon 
another  era  of  development,  and  there  are  other  signs 
that  this  is  true  also  in  the  Iberian  peninsula  itself. 

About  the  time  that  the  first  brilliant  period  of  the 
leadership  of  the  Iberian  peoples  was  drawing  to  a  close, 
at  the  other  end  of  Europe,  in  the  land  of  melancholy 
steppe  and  melancholy  forest,  the  Slav  turned  in  his 
troubled  sleep  and  stretched  out  his  hand  to  grasp  leader- 
ship and  dominion.  Since  then  almost  every  nation  of 
Europe  has  at  one  time  or  another  sought  a  place  in  the 
movement  of  expansion;  but  for  the  last  three  centuries 
the  great  phenomenon  of  mankind  has  been  the  growth 
of  the  English-speaking  peoples  and  their  spread  over  the 
world's  waste  spaces. 

Comparison  is  often  made  between  the  Empire  of 
Britain  and  the  Empire  of  Rome.  When  judged  rela- 
tively to  the  effect  on  all  modern  civilization,  the  Empire 
of  Rome  is  of  course  the  more  important,  simply  because 
all  the  nations  of  Europe  and  their  offshoots  in  other 
continents  trace  back  their  culture  either  to  the  earlier 
Rome  by  the  Tiber,  or  the  later  Rome  by  the  Bosphorus. 
The  Empire  of  Rome  is  the  most  stupendous  fact  in  lay 
history ;  no  empire  later  in  time  can  be  compared  with  it. 
But  this  is  merely  another  way  of  saying  that  the  nearer 
the  source  the  more  important  becomes  any  deflection  of 
the  stream's  current.  Absolutely,  comparing  the  two 
empires  one  with  the  other  in  point  of  actual  achievement, 
and  disregarding  the  immensely  increased  effect  on  other 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  33 

civilizations  which  inhered  in  the  older  empire  because  it 
antedated  the  younger  by  a  couple  of  thousand  years, 
there  is  little  to  choose  between  them  as  regards  the  wide 
and  abounding  interest  and  importance  of  their  careers. 

In  the  world  of  antiquity  each  great  empire  rose  when 
its  predecessor  had  already  crumbled.  By  the  time  that 
Rome  loomed  large  over  the  horizon  of  history,  there  were 
left  for  her  to  contend  with  only  decaying  civilizations 
and  raw  barbarisms.  When  she  conquered  Pyrrhus  she 
strove  against  the  strength  of  but  one  of  the  many  frag- 
ments into  which  Alexander's  kingdom  had  fallen.  When 
she  conquered  Carthage  she  overthrew  a  foe  against 
whom  for  two  centuries  the  single  Greek  city  of  Syracuse 
had  contended  on  equal  terms;  it  was  not  the  Sepoy 
armies  of  the  Carthaginian  plutocracy,  but  the  towering 
genius  of  the  House  of  Barca,  which  rendered  the  strug- 
gle forever  memorable.  It  was  the  distance  and  the 
desert,  rather  than  the  Parthian  horse-bowmen,  that  set 
bounds  to  Rome  in  the  east ;  and  on  the  north  her  advance 
was  curbed  by  the  vast  reaches  of  marshy  woodland, 
rather  than  by  the  tall  barbarians  who  dwelt  therein. 
During  the  long  generations  of  her  greatness,  and  until 
the  sword  dropped  from  her  withered  hand,  the  Parthian 
was  never  a  menace  of  aggression,  and  the  German 
threatened  her  but  to  die. 

On  the  contrary,  the  great  expansion  of  England  has 
occurred,  the  great  empire  of  Britain  has  been  achieved, 
during  the  centuries  that  have  also  seen  mighty  military 
nations  rise  and  flourish  on  the  continent  of  Europe. 
It  is  as  if  Rome,  while  creating  and  keeping  the  empire 
she  won  between  the  days  of  Scipio  and  the  days  of 
Trajan,  had  at  the  same  time  held  her  own  with  the 
Nineveh  of  Sargon  and  Tiglath,  the  Egypt  of  Thothmes 
and  Rameses,  and  the  kingdoms  of  Persia  and  Macedon 


34  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

in  the  red  flush  of  their  warrior-dawn.  The  empire  of 
Britain  is  vaster  in  space,  in  population,  in  wealth,  in 
wide  variety  of  possession,  in  a  history  of  multiplied  and 
manifold  achievement  of  every  kind,  than  even  the  glo- 
rious empire  of  Rome.  Yet,  unlike  Rome,  Britain  has 
won  dominion  in  every  clime,  has  carried  her  flag  by 
conquest  and  settlement  to  the  uttermost  ends  of  the 
earth,  at  the  very  time  that  haughty  and  powerful  rivals, 
in  their  abounding  youth  or  strong  maturity,  were  eager 
to  set  bounds  to  her  greatness,  and  to  tear  from  her  what 
she  had  won  afar.  England  has  peopled  continents  with 
her  children,  has  swayed  the  destinies  of  teeming  myriads 
of  alien  race,  has  ruled  ancient  monarchies,  and  wrested 
from  all  comers  the  right  to  the  world's  waste  spaces, 
while  at  home  she  has  held  her  own  before  nations, 
each  of  military  power  comparable  to  Rome's  at  her 
zenith. 

Rome  fell  by  attack  from  without  only  because  the 
ills  within  her  own  borders  had  grown  incurable.  What 
is  true  of  your  country,  my  hearers,  is  true  of  my  own ; 
while  we  should  be  vigilant  against  foes  from  without, 
yet  we  need  never  really  fear  them  so  long  as  we  safe- 
guard ourselves  against  the  enemies  within  our  own 
households ;  and  these  enemies  are  our  own  passions  and 
follies.  Free  peoples  can  escape  being  mastered  by  others 
only  by  being  able  to  master  themselves.  We  Americans 
and  you  people  of  the  British  Isles  alike  need  ever  to  keep 
in  mind  that,  among  the  many  qualities  indispensable  to 
the  success  of  a  great  democracy,  and  second  only  to  a 
high  and  stern  sense  of  duty,  of  moral  obligation,  are 
self-knowledge  and  self-mastery.  You,  my  hosts,  and  I, 
may  not  agree  in  all  our  views ;  some  of  you  would  think 
me  a  very  radical  democrat — as,  for  the  matter  of  that, 
I  am — and  my  theory  of  imperialism  would  probably  suit 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  35 

the  anti-imperialists  as  little  as  it  would  suit  a  certain  type 
of  forcible-feeble  imperialist.  But  there  are  some  points 
on  which  we  must  all  agree  if  we  think  soundly.  The 
precise  form  of  government,  democratic  or  otherwise,  is 
the  instrument,  the  tool,  with  which  we  work.  It  is 
important  to  have  a  good  tool.  But,  even  if  it  is  the 
best  possible,  it  is  only  a  tool.  No  implement  can  ever 
take  the  place  of  the  guiding  intelligence  that  wields  it. 
A  very  bad  tool  will  ruin  the  work  of  the  best  craftsman; 
but  a  good  tool  in  bad  hands  is  no  better.  In  the  last 
analysis  the  all-important  factor  in  national  greatness  is 
national  character. 

There  are  questions  which  we  of  the  great  civilized 
nations  are  ever  tempted  to  ask  of  the  future.  Is  our 
time  of  growth  drawing  to  an  end?  Are  we  as  nations 
soon  to  come  under  the  rule  of  that  great  law  of  death 
which  is  itself  but  part  of  the  great  law  of  life?  None 
can  tell.  Forces  that  we  can  see,  and  other  forces  that 
are  hidden  or  that  can  but  dimly  be  apprehended,  are  at 
work  all  around  us,  both  for  good  and  for  evil.  The 
growth  in  luxury,  in  love  of  ease,  in  taste  for  vapid  and 
frivolous  excitement,  is  both  evident  and  unhealthy.  The 
most  ominous  sign  is  the  diminution  in  the  birth-rate,  in 
the  rate  of  natural  increase,  now  to  a  larger  or  lesser 
degree  shared  by  most  of  the  civilized  nations  of  Central 
and  Western  Europe,  of  America  and  Australia;  a  dimin- 
ution so  great  that  if  it  continues  for  the  next  century  at 
the  rate  which  has  obtained  for  the  last  twenty-five  years, 
all  the  more  highly  civilized  peoples  will  be  stationary  or 
else  have  begun  to  go  backward  in  population,  while  many 
of  them  will  have  already  gone  very  far  backward. 

There  is  much  that  should  give  us  concern  for  the 
future.  But  there  is  much  also  which  should  give  us 
hope.     No  man  is  more  apt  to  be  mistaken  than  the 


36  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

prophet  of  evil.  After  the  French  Revolution  in  1830, 
Niebuhr  hazarded  the  guess  that  all  civilization  was  about 
to  go  down  with  a  crash,  that  we  were  all  about  to  share 
the  fall  of  third  and  fourth-century  Rome — a  respectable, 
but  painfully  overworked,  comparison.  The  fears  once 
expressed  by  the  followers  of  Malthus  as  to  the  future 
of  the  world  have  proved  groundless  as  regards  the  civil- 
ized portion  of  the  world;  it  is  strange  indeed  to  look 
back  at  Carlyle's  prophecies  of  some  seventy  years  ago, 
and  then  think  of  the  teeming  life  of  achievement,  the  life 
of  conquest  of  every  kind,  and  of  noble  effort  crowned  by 
success,  which  has  been  ours  for  the  two  generations  since 
he  complained  to  High  Heaven  that  all  the  tales  had  been 
told  and  all  the  songs  sung,  and  that  all  the  deeds  really 
worth  doing  had  been  done.  I  believe  with  all  my  heart 
that  a  great  future  remains  for  us;  but  whether  it  does 
or  does  not,  our  duty  is  not  altered.  However  the  battle 
may  go,  the  soldier  worthy  of  the  name  will  with  utmost 
vigour  do  his  allotted  task,  and  bear  himself  as  valiantly 
in  defeat  as  in  victory.  Come  what  will,  we  belong  to 
peoples  who  have  not  yielded  to  the  craven  fear  of  being 
great.  In  the  ages  that  have  gone  by,  the  great  nations, 
the  nations  that  have  expanded  and  that  have  played  a 
mighty  part  in  the  world,  have  in  the  end  grown  old  and 
weakened  and  vanished;  but  so  have  the  nations  whose 
only  thought  was  to  avoid  all  danger,  all  effort,  who 
would  risk  nothing,  and  who  therefore  gained  nothing. 
In  the  end,  the  same  fate  may  overwhelm  all  alike;  but 
the  memory  of  the  one  type  perishes  with  it,  while  the 
other  leaves  its  mark  deep  on  the  history  of  all  the  future 
of  mankind. 

A  nation  that  seemingly  dies  may  be  born  again;  and 
even  though  in  the  physical  sense  it  die  utterly,  it  may 
yet  hand  down  a  history  of  heroic  achievement,  and  for 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  37 

all  time  to  come  may  profoundly  influence  the  nations 
that  arise  in  its  place  by  the  impress  of  what  it  has  done. 
Best  of  all  is  it  to  do  our  part  well,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  see  our  blood  live  young  and  vital  in  men  and  women 
fit  to  take  up  the  task  as  we  lay  it  down ;  for  so  shall  our 
seed  inherit  the  earth.  But  if  this,  which  is  best,  is  denied 
us,  then  at  least  it  is  ours  to  remember  that  if  we  choose 
we  can  be  torch-bearers,  as  our  fathers  were  before  us. 
The  torch  has  been  handed  on  from  nation  to  nation, 
from  civilization  to  civilization,  throughout  all  recorded 
time,  from  the  dim  years  before  history  dawned  down  to 
the  blazing  splendour  of  this  teeming  century  of  ours.  It 
dropped  from  the  hands  of  the  coward  and  the  sluggard, 
of  the  man  wrapped  in  luxury  or  love  of  ease,  the  man 
whose  soul  was  eaten  away  by  self-indulgence;  it  has 
been  kept  alight  only  by  those  who  were  mighty  of  heart 
and  cunning  of  hand.  What  they  worked  at,  provided 
it  was  worth  doing  at  all,  was  of  less  matter  than  how 
they  worked,  whether  in  the  realm  of  the  mind  or  the 
realm  of  the  body.  If  their  work  was  good,  if  what  they 
achieved  was  of  substance,  then  high  success  was  really 
theirs. 

In  the  first  part  of  this  lecture  I  drew  certain  analogies 
between  what  has  occurred  to  forms  of  animal  life  through 
the  procession  of  the  ages  on  this  planet,  and  what  has 
occurred  and  is  occurring  to  the  great  artificial  civiliza- 
tions which  have  gradually  spread  over  the  world's  sur- 
face, during  the  thousands  of  years  that  have  elapsed 
since  cities  of  temples  and  palaces  first  rose  beside  the 
Nile  and  the  Euphrates,  and  the  harbours  of  Minoan 
Crete  bristled  with  the  masts  of  the  Aegean  craft.  But 
of  course  the  parallel  is  true  only  in  the  roughest  and 
most  general  way.  Moreover,  even  between  the  civiliza- 
tions of  to-day  and  the  civilizations  of  ancient  times, 


38  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

there  are  differences  so  profound  that  we  must  be  cautious 
in  drawing  any  conckisions  for  the  present  based  on 
what  has  happened  in  the  past.  While  freely  admitting 
all  of  our  follies  and  weaknesses  of  to-day,  it  is  yet  mere 
perversity  to  refuse  to  realize  the  incredible  advance  that 
has  been  made  in  ethical  standards.  I  do  not  believe  that 
there  is  the  slightest  necessary  connexion  between  any 
weakening  of  virile  force  and  this  advance  in  the  moral 
standard,  this  growth  of  the  sense  of  obligation  to  one's 
neighbour  and  of  reluctance  to  do  that  neighbour  wrong. 
We  need  have  scant  patience  with  that  silly  cynicism 
which  insists  that  kindliness  of  character  only  accom- 
panies weakness  of  character.  On  the  contrary,  just  as 
in  private  life  many  of  the  men  of  strongest  character  are 
the  very  men  of  loftiest  and  most  exalted  morality,  so  I 
believe  that  in  national  life  as  the  ages  go  by  we  shall 
find  that  the  permanent  national  types  will  more  and  more 
tend  to  become  those  in  which,  though  intellect  stands 
high,  character  stands  higher;  in  which  rugged  strength 
and  courage,  rugged  capacity  to  resist  wrongful  aggres- 
sion by  others  will  go  hand  in  hand  with  a  lofty  scorn  of 
doing  wrong  to  others.  This  is  the  type  of  Timoleon,  of 
Hampden,  of  Washington  and  Lincoln.  These  were  as 
good  men,  as  disinterested  and  unselfish  men,  as  ever 
served  a  State ;  and  they  were  also  as  strong  men  as  ever 
founded  or  saved  a  State.  Surely  such  examples  prove 
that  there  is  nothing  Utopian  in  our  effort  to  combine 
justice  and  strength  in  the  same  nation.  The  really  high 
civilizations  must  themselves  supply  the  antidote  to  the 
self-indulgence  and  love  of  ease  which  they  tend  to  pro- 
duce. 

Every  modern  civilized  nation  has  many  and  terrible 
problems  to  solve  within  its  own  borders,  problems  that 
arise  not  merely  from  juxtaposition  of  poverty  and  riches. 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  39 

but  especially  from  the  self -consciousness  of  both  poverty 
and  riches.    Each  nation  must  deal  with  these  matters  in 
its  own  fashion,  and  yet  the  spirit  in  which  the  problem 
is  approached  must  ever  be  fundamentally  the  same.     It 
must  be  a  spirit  of  broad  humanity;  of  brotherly  kind- 
ness; of  acceptance  of  responsibility,  one  for  each  and 
each  for  all ;  and  at  the  same  time  a  spirit  as  remote  as 
the  poles  from  every  form  of  weakness  and  sentimentality. 
As  in  war  to  pardon  the  coward  is  to  do  cruel  wrong  to 
the  brave  man  whose  life  his  cowardice  jeopardizes,  so 
in  civil  affairs  it  is  revolting  to  every  principle  of  justice 
to  give  to  the  lazy,  the  vicious,  or  even  the  feeble  or  dull- 
witted,  a  reward  which  is  really  the  robbery  of  what 
braver,  wiser,  abler  men  have  earned.    The  only  effective 
way  to  help  any  man  is  to  help  him  to  help  himself;  and 
the  worst  lesson  to  teach  him  is  that  he  can  be  perma- 
nently helped  at  the  expense  of  some  one  else.     True 
liberty  shows  itself  to  best  advantage  in  protecting  the 
rights  of  others,  and  especially  of  minorities.     Privilege 
should  not  be  tolerated  because  it  is  to  the  advantage  of 
a  minority;  nor  yet  because  it  is  to  the  advantage  of  a 
majority.     No  doctrinaire  theories  of  vested  rights  or 
freedom  of  contract  can  stand  in  the  way  of  our  cutting 
out  abuses  from  the  body  politic.     Just  as  little  can  we 
afford  to  follow  the  doctrinaires  of  an  impossible— and 
incidentally  of  a  highly  undesirable— social  revolution, 
which  in  destroying  individual  rights— including  property 
rights— and   the    family,   would   destroy  the   two   chief 
agents  in  the  advance  of  mankind,  and  the  two  chief  rea- 
sons why  either  the  advance  or  the  preservation  of  man-  ■ 
kind  is  worth  while.    It  is  an  evil  and  a  dreadful  thing  to 
be  callous  to  sorrow  and  suffering  and  blind  to  our  duty 
to  do  all  things  possible  for  the  betterment  of  social  con- 
ditions.    But  it  is  an  unspeakably  foolish  thing  to  strive 


40  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

for  this  betterment  by  means  so  destructive  that  they 
would  leave  no  social  conditions  to  better.  In  dealing 
with  all  these  social  problems,  with  the  intimate  relations 
of  the  family,  with  wealth  in  private  use  and  business  use, 
with  labour,  with  poverty,  the  one  prime  necessity  is  to 
remember  that  though  hardness  of  heart  is  a  great  evil  it 
is  no  greater  an  evil  than  softness  of  head. 

But  in  addition  to  these  problems,  the  most  intimate 
and  important  of  all,  and  which  to  a  larger  or  less  degree 
affect  all  the  modern  nations  somewhat  alike,  we  of  the 
great  nations  that  have  expanded,  that  are  now  in  com- 
plicated relations  with  one  another  and  with  alien  races, 
have  special  problems  and  special  duties  of  our  own.  You 
belong  to  a  nation  which  possesses  the  greatest  empire 
upon  which  the  sun  has  ever  shone.  I  belong  to  a  nation 
which  is  trying  on  a  scale  hitherto  unexampled  to  work 
out  the  problems  of  government  for,  of,  and  by  the  people, 
while  at  the  same  time  doing  the  international  duty  of  a 
great  power.  But  there  are  certain  problems  which  both 
of  us  have  to  solve,  and  as  to  which  our  standards  should 
be  the  same.  The  Englishman,  the  man  of  the  British 
Isles,  in  his  various  homes  across  the  seas,  and  the  Ameri- 
can, both  at  home  and  abroad,  are  brought  into  contact 
with  utterly  alien  peoples,  some  with  a  civilization  more 
ancient  than  our  own,  others  still  in,  or  having  but  re- 
cently arisen  from,  the  barbarism  which  our  people  left 
behind  ages  ago.  The  problems  that  arise  are  of  well- 
nigh  inconceivable  difficulty.  They  cannot  be  solved  by 
the  foolish  sentimentality  of  stay-at-home  people,  with 
little  patent  recipes,  and  those  cut-and-dried  theories  of 
the  political  nursery. which  have  such  limited  applicability 
amid  the  crash  of  elemental  forces.  Neither  can  they  be 
solved  by  the  raw  brutality  of  the  men  who,  whether  at 
home  or  on  the  rough   frontier  of   civilization,   adopt 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  41 

might  as  the  only  standard  of  right  in  dealing  with  other 
men,  and  treat  ahen  races  only  as  subjects  for  exploita- 
tion. 

No  hard-and-fast  rule  can  be  drawn  as  applying  to  all 
alien  races,  because  they  differ  from  one  another  far 
more  widely  than  some  of  them  differ  from  us.  But 
there  are  one  or  two  rules  which  must  not  be  forgotten. 
In  the  long  run  there  can  be  no  justification  for  one  race 
managing  or  controlling  another  unless  the  management 
and  control  are  exercised  in  the  interest  and  for  the 
benefit  of  that  other  race.  This  is  what  our  peoples  have 
in  the  main  done,  and  must  continue  in  the  future  in  even 
greater  degree  to  do,  in  India,  Egypt,  and  the  Philippines 
alike.  In  the  next  place,  as  regards  every  race,  every- 
where, at  home  or  abroad,  we  cannot  afford  to  deviate 
from  the  great  rule  of  righteousness  which  bids  us  treat 
each  man  on  his  worth  as  a  man.  He  must  not  be  senti- 
mentally favoured  because  he  belongs  to  a  given  race ;  he 
must  not  be  given  immunity  in  wrongdoing  or  permitted 
to  cumber  the  ground,  or  given  other  privileges  which 
would  be  denied  to  the  vicious  and  unfit  among  ourselves. 
On  the  other  hand,  where  he  acts  in  a  way  which  would 
entitle  him  to  respect  and  reward  if  he  was  one  of  our 
own  stock,  he  is  justly  as  entitled  to  that  respect  and 
reward  if  he  comes  of  another  stock,  even  though  +hat 
other  stock  produces  a  much  smaller  proportion  of  men 
of  his  type  than  does  our  own.  This  has  nothing  to  do 
with  social  intermingling,  with  what  is  called  social 
equality.  It  has  to  do  merely  with  the  question  of  doing 
to  each  man  and  each  woman  that  elementary  justice 
which  will  permit  him  or  her  to  gain  from  life  the  reward 
which  should  always  accompany  thrift,  sobriety,  self- 
control,  respect  for  the  rights  of  others,  and  hard  and 
intelligent  work  to  a  given  end.    To  more  than  such  just 


42  Biological  Analogies  in  History 

treatment  no  man  is  entitled,  and  less  than  such  just  treat- 
ment no  man  should  receive. 

The  other  type  of  duty  is  the  international  duty,  the 
duty  owed  by  one  nation  to  another.  I  hold  that  the  laws 
of  morality  which  should  govern  individuals  in  their  deal- 
ings one  with  the  other,  are  just  as  binding  concerning 
nations  in  their  dealings  one  with  the  other.  The  appli- 
cation of  the  moral  law  must  be  different  in  the  two 
cases,  because  in  one  case  it  has,  and  in  the  other  it  has 
not,  the  sanction  of  a  civil  law  with  force  behind  it.  The 
individual  can  depend  for  his  rights  upon  the  courts, 
which  themselves  derive  their  force  from  the  police  power 
of  the  State.  The  nation  can  depend  upon  nothing  of  the 
kind;  and  therefore,  as  things  are  now,  it  is  the  highest 
duty  of  the  most  advanced  and  freest  peoples  to  keep 
themselves  in  such  a  state  of  readiness  as  to  forbid  to  any 
barbarism  or  despotism  the  hope  of  arresting  the  progress 
of  the  world  by  striking  down  the  nations  that  lead  in 
that  progress.  It  would  be  foolish  indeed  to  pay  heed  to 
the  unwise  persons  who  desire  disarmament  to  be  begun 
by  the  very  peoples  who,  of  all  others,  should  not  be  left 
helpless  before  any  possible  foe.  But  we  must  reprobate 
quite  as  strongly  both  the  leaders  and  the  peoples  who 
practise,  or  encourage,  or  condone,  aggression  and  ini- 
quity by  the  strong  at  the  expense  of  the  weak.  We 
should  tolerate  lawlessness  and  wickedness  neither  by 
the  weak  nor  by  the  strong;  and  both  weak  and  strong 
we  should  in  return  treat  with  scrupulous  fairness.  The 
foreign  policy  of  a  great  and  self-respecting  country 
should  be  conducted  on  exactly  the  same  plane  of  honour, 
of  insistence  upon  one's  own  rights  and  of  respect  for 
the  rights  of  others,  that  marks  the  conduct  of  a  brave 
and  honourable  man  when  dealing  with  his  fellows.  Per- 
mit me  to  support  this  statement  out  of  my  own  ex- 


Biological  Analogies  in  History  43 

perience.  For  nearly  eight  years  I  was  the  head  of  a 
great  nation,  and  charged  especially  with  the  conduct 
of  its  foreign  policy;  and  during  those  years  I  took  no 
action  with  reference  to  any  other  people  on  the  face 
of  the  earth  that  I  would  not  have  felt  justified  in  taking 
as  an  individual  in  dealing  with  other  individuals. 

I  believe  that  we  of  the  great  civilized  nations  of  to- 
day have  a  right  to  feel  that  long  careers  of  achievement 
lie  before  our  several  countries.  To  each  of  us  is  vouch- 
safed the  honourable  privilege  of  doing  his  part,  however 
small,  in  that  work.  Let  us  strive  hardily  for  success 
even  if  by  so  doing  we  risk  failure,  spurning  the  poorer 
souls  of  small  endeavour  who  know  neither  failure  nor 
success.  Let  us  hope  that  our  own  blood  shall  continue 
in  the  land,  that  our  children  and  children's  children  to 
endless  generations  shall  arise  to  take  our  places  and  play 
a  mighty  and  dominant  part  in  the  world.  But  whether 
this  be  denied  or  granted  by  the  years  we  shall  not  see, 
let  at  least  the  satisfaction  be  ours  that  we  have  carried 
onward  the  lighted  torch  in  our  own  day  and  generation. 
If  we  do  this,  then,  as  our  eyes  close,  and  we  go  out  into 
the  darkness,  and  others'  hands  grasp  the  torch,  at  least 
we  can  say  that  our  part  has  been  borne  well  and  valiantly. 


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